I love sharing my every lil teeny weeny experiences with the world, hence why I blog. Presenting my blog, my experience, my "PERSPECTIVE"! I LOVE TALKING (& maybe exaggerating a lil bit on certain issues) but seriously I love talking/advocating/debating about Agriculture. This blog is about my Agriculture world/experience in the Pacific. My posts may vary from Agriculture, Para-Vet work, Use of Social Media, Agriculture Youths in the Pacific etc. Feel free to leave a comment.

Sunday, 6 April 2014

I just remembered that last year (2013) there was a query about how to best engage youths in agriculture, such as by using social media and other ICTs.

I had the opportunity to share my experiences and stories. Please have a read.

Enjoy!

Presenting my blog at the Pacific Web 2.0 training in Nadi.

Elenoa Salele, Animal Health and Production Intern, Land Resources Division (LRD), Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) – Animal Health and Production Team, Suva, Fiji

Hello,

I'am a young person who is passionate about agriculture, but unfortunately I'am not in the majority and so I spend my free time with my family and my church youth group, encouraging them to take an interest in agriculture. I also enjoy being involved in my family's farm, and last year we've started planting more vegetables, like cabbages, tomatoes, lettuce and pumpkins etc.

With my church youth group we have days set aside to discuss projects; at the moment our youths have started off with farming of vegetables and crops and I'am also looking at introducing a piggery farm with the youth. I'am also the Animal Health Intern at SPC-LRD, Animal Health and Production Team, and that really helps me to share my knowledge with my families, friends and youth group. What I learn from my internship I try and apply to the church youth, community, my families and our backyard garden. Also I get advice from our experts and officers here especially on the livestock side.

I think it's good to get youths involved in agriculture as they are young, active and strong hence they get more work done faster, i.e. either crop farming or rearing of livestock's for household or commercial use. Agriculture is something to keep unemployed youths grounded at home and keep them out of mischief but at the same time they learn and earn from it. Farming is one profession that is a major source of income today and not many youths realize that. Unfortunately most youths look at agriculture as a dirty and "last resort" profession, I guess it's the mentality of people and that's why agriculture is being looked at this way - people's mentality of being successful is to be a lawyer, doctor, nurse etc.

At the church our youths ranges from 19 to 28. Some of their families have farms, but usually away in their family village and not in their backyard; it might be someone else doing the farming and not them hence getting them out there together and involved in agriculture with everyone is a good motivation for them. For the youths, it's something that brings us together and it encourages them to learn about farming and its importance.

Urbanization and Youth Drift

We live in urban areas, it is convenient and easy for us as we're close to the markets and shops – so many ask "why should we bother growing vegetables and crops if we can just get it from the markets/shops"?

Through growing and harvesting of crops with the youth group they are starting to appreciate the benefits of farming. Most youths are moving out of the rural areas into urban, leaving older people and young children behind who are not able to work and do not have the energy to plant or farm more, maybe if we could get some sort of source of production and incentive on agricultural attraction i.e. money wise set up in the rural areas for agriculture farming then we will be able to keep the youths there and encourage them to farm more.

Agriculture for fundraising

The opportunity to make money through agriculture is how our farming program initially began. We usually have rallies and sometimes we host them and as hosts we need to have enough funds to pay for the rally event. It started off with a chat with a friend of mine about how we can use farming as a way of earning some money for our youth group and to use them for other church events. While we were chatting we came up with some ideas on how to fundraise, and she said "why don't you bring in your agriculture skills and things you have learned in uni (and at SPC) and we can all pitch in".

This became one way to raise money and also educate our youths on farming. Our youths started off with planting of crops and vegetables. Tools and planting materials (such as cassava stems from our own family backyard gardens) were readily provided for so we did not need funds for this. Planting of cassavas were done on backyards of whichever youths that volunteered to give their land for farming.

We talked about; when to harvest and who to sell it too and thought it would be better to sell them to our neighbors and church members. It is interesting to see how the youths get interested in details of farming such as harvesting periods, the potential pest and diseases that can affect the crops etc. It is also rewarding to see youths practicing this at their homes hence saving money from buying in markets.

I also get asked a lot of questions, especially about pests and diseases that impact the crops and vegetable, and when we can plant taro? - so that will be another step. It's great that we also get support from our families and communities.

We've also got a new piggery farm idea and we have discussed this with our cell group to get our youths involved in it. A while ago a youth member of our community mentioned that they have a piggery farm in the village and asked for details in maintaining the farm. The pigs gave birth to 5 healthy piglets. Through the knowledge and information, I received from co-workers in AH&P, LRD, I was able to provide advice to the community and the particular youth on their enquiries on how to maintain the piglets. The piggery idea came up again when we had a meeting with an NGO as they were setting up a pig farm in one of the schools in the outer islands. Also a friend asked me to help with setting up he's new piggery farm. I helped them organize the piggery and I thought "why not just do these for the community as well?" Hence, we have discussed this with our cell group and they think it is a great idea, so at the moment I'm writing a project proposal on the pig farm.

Agriculture is like a farming cycle. We can plant crops and vegetables; it would not only feed us as individuals but our animals as well. We can also benefit from animal waste by setting up a Biogas Digester. The effluent (pig waste) can be used as fertilizers to crops and vegetables and production of green energy i.e. electricity and heat to a community. This reduces the cost of buying chemical/artificial fertilizers to keep the soil fertile but is also environmentally friendly.

Youth Agriculture Facebook and Blogs

I have a Blog and a shared FB (Facebook) account that promotes agriculture. ICT (Information Communication Technology) is a great way to attract the attention and get the message across to our youths on the importance of Agriculture. We try to promote agriculture in the form of social media as many youths are on FB (Facebook), Twitter, G+ (Google+) etc.

The FB account is called "Youth and Agriculture – Sustainability & Modernization through ICT" (login to Facebook, then search: http://www.facebook.com/#!/agrifiji?fref=ts ). This is a shared account with Riten Gosaic. This page is for the people, especially the youths of the Pacific who are involved in agriculture or are thinking of making it a profession.

The major objective of this page is to eradicate the stereotype (preconceived negative attitude) that agriculture is for the rural populace and a layman's subject. This page also aims to encourage the youth in saying 'yes' to agriculture. Remember, we in the pacific survive through agriculture. It is the Pacific mainstay and we need to prioritize it. Everyone is invited to share their ideas on ACP agriculture & improvements!

For my blog "Finding ME in the Agriculture world" (basically to find myself as a youth in the agriculture sector) – The blog is about myself, you may be wondering why it is about me, I'am an agri. graduate and as a youth I feel that after graduating we find ourselves drifting from one point to another. We do not know which field we want to be involved in or some of us do not get into the field that we really want to be involved in and this blog is also to help other youths who feel the same to basically find our footings and adapting to it. At the same time I post up scholarship opportunities for agri. farming and some of the workshops that I attended etc.

A particular social media success has been on my Blog, the piece about "Biogas Digester Effluent Trial" at Koronivia Research Station (KRS) and a comment also from a youth was later posted asking which effluent was used in particular. I was able to personally discuss my experience with the youth. It is a great feeling to know that youths are also reading your posts and sometimes we both learn from each other by information‟s exchanged. This interest in biogas also feeds my interest in the piggery.

What can be done to improve services of projects to youths?

It‟s this follow-up that‟s so important.

For example, SPC LRD in collaboration with CTA organized the web 2.0 training in Fiji and I invited youths from my community as the training would help them. It was great and we all learnt a lot, especially about how to get information using the internet, information about agriculture. Also, these youths knew about FB, but didn't really know about Twitter and Blogs and how to best search for information using Google. Blogs were quite new to them so I showed them about blogs and how other youths are able to read them and get involved in discussions. They really enjoyed using those social media tools and were keen to present what they learnt to their supervisors after the workshop but they had trouble and sometimes found it hard to figure out some details, like for GIS mapping and blogging – for that I took a bit of time to show them afterwards.

It's the continuous support that is important, and I think that's difficult to provide as we have limited resource in the Pacific and we can't give every youth one-on-one attention on an ongoing basis. It's the same for all projects, whether for social media education or planting crops or rearing livestock, we should follow up with that, as if we leave it, the youth will typically lose interest – it's just how it is - so we need to take them through to the very end.

In conclusion, it is important that we encourage youths to participate in agriculture and not have this profession looked down at. Most youths do not realize that no matter what, ultimately our "survival originates from the soil!"

Thursday, 30 January 2014

I remember i once mentioned to friends who i have been trying to persuade to get involved with blogging that "Time management is important to keep ones blog updated"!! Hence, my sincerest apologies for the late updates.

I would like to share with you a very important training that i attended last year (2013) about Web 2.0 training in the Pacific. We learnt how to use Web 2.0 social media tools to share information on specific topics e.g. Exchanging/promoting/sharing of Agricultural information's through social media such as Facebook, twitter, blogs etc.

There was a total of 23 participants from the Pacific Countries that attended the training. The participants were from Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Samoa, Palau, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Nauru, Niue and Tuvalu.

I was given an opportunity to present about my work and my experience on the use of social media which helps me promote and share my thoughts about Agriculture online.

You can find below my presentation and please do not hesitate to contact me for any queries yous might have.

Web 2.0 Training and Exchange Workshop

Ms.
Elenoa Salele

Land
Resources Division

Secretariat
of the Pacific Community

BulaVinaka. My name is ElenoaSalele. I graduated from USP, Alafua campus with a Bachelor in Agriculture. I have had the pleasure of learning and working alongside
professional staff on and off the field. From field work to the technical side
of Agriculture at SPC.

2nd slide:

Is Agriculture a “DIRTY JOB”??

What are the views of why young people do not engage in
Agriculture.

In one of the interviews for the Pacific Youth and Agri Strategy, some
youths regarded Agriculture as a dirty job but personally I feel that
Agriculture is our bread and butter. it provides food on the table, it’s a good
source of money, food security and it develops our economy. I would say that
they “DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE MISSING”!!

2013 Web 2.0 participants

3rd slide:

2012 web 2.0 participants

Web 2.0 participants - 2012

ICT (Information Communication Technology) is a great
way to attract the attention and get the message across to our youths on the
importance of Agriculture. We try to promote agriculture in the form of
social media as many youths are on FB (Facebook), Twitter and G+
(Google+) etc.

4th slide:

I have a Blog and a shared Facebook account that promotes agriculture. Last year I
created my own blog “Finding ME in the Agriculture World”

I now have 23 stories on my blog. This has been a great
exposure as I also get feedback from youths in ACP countries on my blog about
some of the workshops, training's, conference, field work I attended.
This blog is to basically explain everything that I ‘am involved in,
work wise. The title says it all. I ‘am trying to find my spot on where I fit
in. Where I ‘am headed and where I will end up in the Agriculture world. What I write on my blog are mainly events
which I partake in that I find very interesting. For my blog “Finding ME in the Agriculture world” (basically to find
myself as a youth in the agriculture sector) – The blog is about myself, you
may be wondering why it is about me, I’m an agri. graduate and as a youth I
feel that after graduating we find ourselves drifting from one point to
another. We do not know which field we want to be involved in or some of us do
not get into the field that we really want to be involved in and this blog is
also to help other youths who feel the same to basically find our footings and
adapting to it. At the same time i
post up scholarship opportunities for agri., farming and some of the workshops
that i attended etc.

5th slide:

A particular social media success has been on my Blog,
the piece about “Biogas Digester Effluent Trial” at Koronivia Research Station
(KRS) and a comment also from a youth was later posted asking which effluent
was used in particular. I was able to personally discuss my experience with the
youth. It is a great feeling to know that youths are also reading your posts and
sometimes we both learn from each other by information’s exchanged. This
interest in biogas also feeds my interest in the piggery.

6th slide:

One of the facebook account which I administer is called ‘Youth and Agriculture – Sustainability & Modernization
through ICT’ .
This is a shared account with RitenGosaic. This page is for
the people, especially the youths of the Pacific who are involved in
agriculture or are thinking of making it a profession. The major objective of
this page is to eradicate the stereotype (preconceived negative attitude) that
agriculture is for the rural populace and a layman's subject. This page also
aims to encourage the youth in saying 'yes' to agriculture. Remember, we in the
pacific survive through agriculture. It is the Pacific mainstay and we need to
prioritize it. Everyone is invited to share their ideas on ACP agriculture
& improvements!

7th slide:

"Practice what you preach"

Drenching done by youths

Youths in Samoa

So! I would recommend that everyone should think of
Agriculture as a field of study and source of investment.

It has been a
while since I posted up another piece. I was just thinking of sharing with you
a blog post that I had worked on 2 years ago with my sister Ms. Titilia on the “Role
of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT’s) in Agriculture by Pacific
Youth and Smallholder Agriculture Enterprises”.

It is important for youths in our Pacific Region to learn and
understand more about the importance of Information Communication Technologies
(ICT) in the Agricultural field.

NAME AND LOCATION OF ENTERPRISE: “Island
Express Company”

We had conducted a survey on a smallholder enterprise known as Island Express
Company in Nausori which exports taro to New Zealand. The company director is
Mr. Viliame Naqelevuki

Women
do the cleaning and men do the packing and scaling of taro’s and packed into
the container. Whilst processing, biosecurity officers will inspect, certify
and release phyto certificate.

Figure 2: Women cleaning the taro

Figure 3: Men packing the taro

Average size of farming enterprise:
Island
Express does not look at the size of the farming enterprise but the
availability of taro. Whichever farmer has taro ready to harvest the company
goes to buy from them.

Production/Supply side: The
taro variety that is in demand for export is “tausala” and “maleka
dina” taro. Most farmers (suppliers) farm on a larger scale and takes
6-7 months to harvest the taro. The
company also educates farmers or encourages farmers to farm on a larger scale
hence farmers would be able to produce more therefore earn more money. During
grading the company would advise farmers which taro variety is best suited for
export purposes and which ones is best suited for our local markets.

At
the moment supply is low whilst demand is high. This has also affected the size
of the taro.

Figure 4: Farmer supplying taro to the buyers

Transport:
Island express provides transport to and fro from the farming sites in either
to provide assistance such a as manures etc. to the farmers and also to assist
in the harvesting of taro’s.

Harvesting: Once
taro is ready for harvesting, the farmers calls there buyers. Island Express
hence places there orders and advices the farmers on the day of their visit and
the farmers would harvest there taro’s on that particular day of visit. In
order to fill 1 whole container, at least 13 tonne (430 x 30kg bags) of fresh
taro has to be packed. Processing is done every week depending on the
availability of boat for export.

ICT is needed to manage an agricultural enterprise
efficiently and it is important that the information’s and knowledge gathered
is accurate or complete in order to deliver good decision makings.

Information’s about the agricultural enterprise’s
task/functions and schedules of mentioned phases are disseminated to the
farmers in means of traditional methods i.e. Newspapers, pamphlets, posters, radios and
television etc. This normally takes a longer time for information to reach the
farmers hence verbal communication, phone calls and use of internet via emails
are used as it is more efficient than the traditional methods.

Island
Express had stated that their means of communication with the farmers
(suppliers) is mostly done through mobile phone calls as it is easier and
faster. Not all farmers have access to internet for communication via email
with their buyers hence the use of mobile phones. Also most of the telephone companies
offer special promotions like free bundle of calls and texts locally so this is
not costly for both producers and consumers. Also internet network is not
available in all the rural areas where farmers live. Some parts of Fiji e.g.
the interior of Namosi, where there is no Vodafone, Digicel and Telecom Fiji
Limited Network Coverage, farmers use satellite phones to contact Island Express
when the taro is ready for harvesting or vice versa where Island Express calls
the farmers to place orders on taro’s to be bought.

We
should also bear in mind that a mobile phone has features such as a camera on
phone. Farmers would be able to capture photos of pest and disease from the
field with much finer resolution and then refer to Research organizations such
as Biosecurity, SPC, etc. for identification and verification. This would assist
in answering to the queries of farmers; hence enhancing their knowledge on the
new found pests and diseases on their farm.

In
other parts of Fiji for instance the interior of Namosi and Naitasiri (Tubarua village)
none of the mentioned ICT tools above is available to the farmers including satellite
phones and this is where verbal communication comes in. The staffs have field
visits to the farms and verbally inform the farmers on their schedule e.g. date
of grading, etc and also to educate farmers on what taro variety is high in
demand from the export market. The staff of Island Express would have to drive
up to Sawanikula point to meet the farmers with their taros. There are certain
farmers in Tubarua village that lends their horses for hire to other farmers.
One horse would carry a maximum weight of 140kg worth of taro on horseback per
trip to the pickup point which is Sawanikula. A farmer and horse would have to
cross the same Wainimala River 21 times to get to the pickup point.

Figure 6: Taro being transported to pick up point

Markets
in developing regions are about distributing information and most markets
assume that everyone knows this information, e.g. cost of produce and
processing times. Some farmers are not aware of market price in the urban areas
and also internationally. One village would be selling at a different price
from the other village. Mobile phones play an important role of keeping both
parties i.e. producers and consumers informed on the costs of produce both
locally and internationally.

Figure 7: Taro packed in container

Figure 8: Ready for export

In conclusion, mobile phone is seen to play a vital role of ICT in Agriculture.
It connects both producers and consumers technologically in order to
disseminate informations and communicate with each other.